@teiledesganzen replied to your post: ((possibly tmi and/or nsfw but not really?? no cut...
Since no one has responded yet: I understand both your concern and your discomfort in discussing this with your psychiatrist. I still think it might be worth doing so. So: maybe it would lessen your discomfort to write your thoughts down so he can read them instead of first bringing this up in talking? Just an idea, feel free to discard if it’s not helpful! :)
that’s a good thought! not sure if that would be more or less comfortable, but maybe I’ll bring it up with my therapist first and see if she can help me strategize.
I feel a little weird complaining about it but more and more I’m noticing that this doesn’t seem to be like, the normal kind of ebb and flow and it’s . disorienting? is not quite the word.
but anyway thank you for encouraging me to talk to him and bringing up the writing option! it makes me feel a little more valid just to know someone else thinks it might be worth bringing up and isn’t like, my coffee being not quite right but not bad enough to complain about.
@teiledesganzen said: I… don’t know whether I love or hate the idea. But I seem to feel strongly about it! Tell me more? :) (Still waiting for someone to write me a Pillsbieste (Biestebury?) romance, though.)
first, sorry this reply is SO LATE, but, anyway - ... I apparently have a LOT to ramble about re: Sue/Emma, under the cut.
Of course this comes just completely out of how much I want something better for Emma. (A feeling that watching any of her canonical romatnic relationships brings back full-force.) All of her boyfriends are just awful, and repeatedly so in a specific way, where they disregard her wishes and autonomy, where they don’t take her seriously...
And, well, I guess it’s ridiculous to talk about Sue respecting other peoples’ autonomy. She’s a trickster, a manipulator, even a dictator. But she does take Emma as seriously as she takes anyone she works with - which is to say, not very, that one can tell.
I’m not sure where one would go with this idea. My ideas are somewhat silly, like, Power Couple Of Making McKinley Suck Ever So Slightly Less, which seems very, good cop, bad cop, I guess. Or just - how desperately lonely they both are? (It might be better to ask who isn’t, on Glee. But still.)
... the fraught history they both have with weddings; Sue’s presence at and covering for Emma’s run away from the altar (now if only it had stuck!!!)...
But, no, I don’t know. Hm. I just feel like I want to say: Sue doesn’t underestimate Emma. Most everyone does - she’s ‘meek as a mouse!’ - but I think Sue doesn’t.
And there’s a mutual hostility there. Sue constantly pretends not to know Emma’s name; the first thing Emma says on Glee... I forget, and I think they were still establishing characterization anyway, but every time I start a rewatch again it’s shockingly mean to me, (from Emma), borderline OOC, and it’s at Sue.
They don’t approve how each other works, how each other approach the job that they both care about. But they’re also very much on the same side. Unlike Will, who’s constantly floundering and blinded by projection, they both really do want to help ‘their’ kids.
And then, even that’s different, too! Emma sees the whole school as hers - at least theoretically - though I get the feeling sometimes that she buys into the internal student hierarchies far more than a professional (or even adult) should. Sometimes as it’s presented; sometimes ‘backwards,’ in that she has more sympathy for the ‘losers,’ with whom she identifies herself. Whereas Sue! Is supposedly motivated by winning (... like Will is), but, I think, is very much there for the protection of her favored few - whom she picks for personal and capricious reasons.
So what if Emma were to be one of them? I can see half of how that could happen - Sue can fall (in some sense) for people who impress her, and I know that Emma can be impressive.
I think I’d do this in the context of a reorganization of McKinley. Maybe Sue getting to be principal, not quite the way it happened in the show. But then, Sue and Emma (who’s also on the admin side!) being forced to work together more closely! Sue appreciating how ruthless Emma can be, with plans and schedules if not with people - but surprisingly effective with people, too. And Emma...
I have a harder time imagining that, her responsiveness to Sue’s demands or commands or whatever. I think she’d flare up. I also think that Sue would like that, sure. But when all’s said and done and Emma inevitably slinks back to work with her tail between her legs..
Does Sue give her what she wanted, maybe? Do they work out a compromise? - go for that. But neither of those address the real question, which is, of course, how does Emma feel? About all this, about working so closely with Sue.
Impressed? Turned on? I could see both of those things, sure, too. But I also don’t think I’d see them lead to anything -
Until Sue turns it off. Sue, who, remember her episodes of softness underneath!, wants romance, too, like many of us mortals, though she doesn’t show it 99% of the time. She invites Emma out for dinner and then has to clarify (when they’re already there) that it’s not just a business meeting. It’s, more, maybe we could spend time together, as friends. Get to know each other in an atmosphere removed from butting heads. etc., etc.
And Emma says, you’re so different here, gosh.
Sue’s smile is wry; she’s ambivalent. The way she is most of the time isn’t not-real.
... and I don’t have an ending, I don’t even have a story. But I guess that, there, is the start.
You grew up in this culture, right? So why are you surprised that you can imagine variations of it as fiction/fantasy? (I could also argue that this is how you know that we all have a choice about being a “villain” - we can imagine terrible things and still refrain from going ahead and *doing* them to nonconsenting others…)
By “grew up in this culture” do you mean rape culture, or that I grew up around a somewhat manipulative person? (I could possibly argue for both.)
It’s not that I’m surprised I can imagine something like this happening. That people do it. What their thought processes are, to a certain extent.
Writing that would have mildly disturbed me, but far less, I think, if it hadn’t come quite so easily. If I hadn’t been so good at it, to the point of (pleasantly) surprising my roleplay partner who already thinks fairly highly of my writing. If I hadn’t quite so instinctively known just how to spin it, not outright accusing, but fairly clearly saying I (she, though I was writing this in the first person) was manipulated, taken advantage of, and ashamed of what had happened.
Perhaps I knew precisely how to spin it because other people already spoke that way of a situation that happened to me (against my will, as the person who was seen as the victim).
You do make a point. That anyone can be the villain, but it’s our conscious choice not to be. Is it really so heroic to choose the “good” if the “bad” was just never presented as an option in your mind, if the “bad” isn’t really tempting at all?
Still, I generally prefer not to feel myself quite so close to the villain, in mindset or in anything else (though sometimes I fear Risa and I are more alike than I originally thought and designed her to be, that there’s a reason why she’s stuck with me in various incarnations for years and is one of the characters I end up playing most often, beyond the fact that this partner likes playing opposite her).
You’re welcome! I like thinking about bits of stories that other people are writing. :)
That is a dangerous thing to tell me, most likely... ;P
Care to elaborate or specify what captures your interest?
Also, why specifically other people’s stories?
teiledesganzen replied to your post: Very rough drafts of all selection criteria done....
The more I read about your application writing, the more I think “this is different from how I do it over here”. So, care to explain more about how you do things over there? :)
This is perfect procrastination material right now, just so you know. :)
Okay, the average job application here comes in three parts - a covering letter, a CV and a reply to selection criteria. You can also include portfolio items, copies of certificates etc if requested or if you think they’re relevant, but those three are the standard. And this is going to get long, so I’m putting the rest behind a cut...
The covering letter is where you basically pitch yourself to the employer as a potential employee. You explain who you are, why you want the job and how you match the job description, and give contact details so that they can arrange an interview if they want. A standard covering letter has four paragraphs and is only one page long, but if the advertisement doesn’t ask for a reply to selection criteria, the covering letter can run longer.
The CV can have several formats, but however you organise it, it’s a summary of your education, qualifications, work history and skills, and referee contact details. I’m currently switching mine over from an academic CV to a professional skills-focussed CV, which is harder than it first sounds because the requirements for an academic CV and a professional CV are so different. I’m having to think around corners a bit.
The reply to selection criteria is longest section of the application and the one that’s usually most trouble to write. Each job advertisement includes a list of skills/qualifications/characteristics that a candidate has to be able to meet to even be considered for the job - these are called selection criteria, person specifications, skills requirements or half a dozen other names, but they all do the same thing, which is help to identify the people with the best set of skills for the job. In an application, you have to reply to each criterion separately, in writing, in a way that demonstrates that you have the skill in question and shows your experience in using it - and also demonstrates your writing skill, incidentally! There are two main structures used to do this: STAR structure (Situation, Task, Action, Result) and 5-point (state that you have the skill; state when and where you acquired it; give an example of you using the skill; give a second, contrasting example; and name a referee who can validate your claim). This reply section can run to several thousand words - I’ve written academic applications with almost 8,000 words in the reply to selection criteria, and the one I’m working on now will be about 3,000 once I’ve finished. Anyone who’s thinking clearly keeps copies of all their previous applications, and cuts and pastes bits of previous applications to suit new ones wherever possible, because it makes life so much easier.
When you’ve got all of those things written and polished, you usually send them in by email. Very few jobs ask for hard copy these days; if people want to see a physical portfolio, they’ll ask you to bring it to an interview.
And that’s the process. It can take a couple of weeks to write a good application even when you’re at your best - I’m not, right now, so it’s like swimming through treacle, especially because I don’t have any other applications in this field that I can cut and past from. But it usually works out in the end. And a good, well-written application can get you over the people-hire-who-they-know bump and through the door no matter what naysayers like to claim: I’ve got an interview and a job in the past based solely on written applications. Here’s hoping I can do it again...
teiledesganzen replied to your post: Really good useful session with the counsellor...
Happy to hear you have support both of the cheerleading and the skill-sharing kind. You can totally do this. :)
Thank you for the extra cheerleading! I’m feeling a lot more confident now that I have a better idea of what to do with my CV, and also my HoD just put me in the way of getting some freelance academic/technical writing work which is great (and I can add it to my CV).
